Surfing in El Cuco – El Salvador
El Cuco – El Salvador
This time we visited El Cuco. A small town located near the maritime border between El Salvador and Nicaragua. The town as such we didn’t visit much as we spent all our time in a hostel/hotel called “la Tortuga Verde”. Excellent place to relax and also to surf which was partly what I was looking for. To get to El Cuco you have to first get to the bus terminal in San Miguel and from there take bus #320 to El Cuco.
By this point in our trip, our patience for riding the “chicken” buses was wearing thin. It is chaos to be inside these buses with the loud music, so many vendors, the amount of people is almost always impressive, but well, we couldn’t avoid it if we wanted to continue travelling cheap.
We arrived, more precisely at La Tortuga Verde, one of the best hostels/hotels/resorts I stayed at during my trip to Central America. Practically since we started our trip from Mexico to El Salvador people kept recommending this place to us and it was no wonder. It was spectacular. The price is very affordable even for backpackers. The place had a swimming pool, surfboards for rent, a restaurant and it was just a few meters away from the sea. The only problem for us was that there was no communal kitchen.
In this place, they also try to preserve the life of the turtles, so when many of them come to lay their eggs they take care of collecting them and put them in a safer place.
Very close to El Cuco there is a beach called Florez. This beach is very famous for surfing in El Salvador and many people come here to avoid the good waves that can form there. The hostel Tortuga Verde transports people almost every day to Florez in the morning hours. I didn’t have that level yet so I decided to stay in El Cuco and improve it.
I decided to learn how to surf, so I got up the courage and went into the sea with my board. Waves hit me hard and I had to endure several falls, nothing serious, at least during the first hour. After almost 2 hours and having tried previously at El Tunco, I was able to stand up on a surfboard. It’s a bit difficult but once you have the technique it becomes easy. I was still surfing with a big board (for beginners) which made it very easy to balance.
The idea was to be able to decrease the size as I practised. That afternoon I was in the water for a long time and when I was about to get back on the board after a couple of steps on the sand at the bottom of the sea I felt a sting near my heel. I had no idea what it was but it hurt like hell. I immediately got out of the water to look for help and was told that it was a manta ray and that the pain would spread throughout my body. To prevent this I had to go to the village to get an injection, which I agreed to immediately. The hostel was very diligent with my accident and immediately transported me to the nearest shop. Shop? Yes, shop. In a shop next to the chips and cokes they laid me down on a bench and the same lady who sold the sodas and everything in the shop gave me 2 injections in my buttock. It was very funny and although it scared me a lot it didn’t happen and the pain disappeared by the end of the day.
